His family were descendants of Tatars, fabulously wealthy, and it was in their Moika Palace (one of many luxurious estates) that he and Grand Duke Dmitri killed Rasputin, though no mention of this event is made during the tour of the Yusupov Palace in St. Petersburg.

Rasputin, however, was apparently more interested in Irina, and it was on the pretext of a tryst with her that Felix invited him to the Moika Palace on the night he died.

Some of the financial pain was alleviated when Felix and Irina successfully sued MGM for invasion of privacy and libel in connection with the 1932 film "Rasputin and the Empress".

Princess Zenaide Yusupov was born in 1861, the second daughter of Prince Nicholas Yusupov, Grand Master of the Ceremonies at the Court of Alexander II, and Countess Tatiana Ribeaupierre.

Irina contacted Crown Princess Cecile of Prussia, asking that she intercede with her father-in-law, but Wilhelm was unwilling to release the Yusupovs; instead, he offered them their choice of one of three country estates for the duration of the War, assuring them that they would be comfortable and protected.

Accompanied by Irina and their daughter, he left Petrograd for the family estate of Rakitnoye in central Russia; Zenaide and her husband quickly followed them, and the family passed a cold, uncomfortable winter in the isolated house, far removed from the tumultuous events that erupted in Petrograd in February of 1917.

Siberia Siberia (Russian:, common English transliterations: Sibir, Sibir; possibly from the Mongolian for the calm land) is a vast region of Russia and northern Kazakhstan constituting almost all of northern Asia.

Russian oil billionaire Roman Abramovich was a struggling businessman when he married Irina, his second wife, in 1991 and his entire wealth has been built up during the marriage, which should have given Irina plenty of bargaining power in the recent divorce settlement.

Irina has apparently been given cash and property worth between £1 billion ($1.95 billion) and £2 billion ($3.89 billion) out of her husband's fortune, though Russia's secretive legal system means exact details of the settlement aren't likely to be made public.

The privacy afforded to Abramovich by Russia's Byzantine legal system clearly meant a lot to the oligarch, who made his fortune in a series of controversial oil-export deals in the early 1990s.

After the October Revolution, those of the members of the Romanoff Family, who were able to leave Russia and avoid the fate of sixteen of their relatives found themselves in various countries, usually close to their European relatives.

Most of the Princes and Princesses of Russia chose their spouses among the members of great historic Russian families as they no longer could bear the idea of seeking a husband or a wife in the traditional German breeding grounds.

As their next step the founding Princes and Princesses proposed to all princes and princesses born after the Revolution, whose addresses were known and whose desire to be part of a Family Association was obvious, to confirm their agreement to become members of the Romanoff Family Association.

romanovfundforrussia.org /family/family.html (1029 words)

felix yusupov(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-16)

Felix was raised in opulent excess by his doting mother.

Felix and Irina successfully sued MGM for invasion of privacy and libel in connection with the 1932 film "Rasputin and the Empress".

Felix also was able to sell a pair of Rembrandt paintings from his palace for a significant fortune.

Russias industrialization had accelerated in the last decades of the 19th century but could not forestall the widening of the economic and military gap between Russia and Europes other powers.

Russias fragile democracy has been weakened by a political climate pervaded by the fear of terrorism; xenophobia is rising, with Chechens and other groups from the Caucasus its main targets and the police perpetrating, rather than preventing, abuse; civil liberties and press freedoms are being restricted.

Because Russia is telling the story, the terrorism associated with the war in Chechnya is portrayed as senseless violence perpetrated by bloody-minded Chechens against innocent Russians.

Economically, Russia was going great guns before the revolution; a middle class, despite being un-Russian in concept, was becoming a buffer between the tsar at the top and the hordes of "The People" below.

Russia's very variety and flexibility was her strongest suit, and with better governmental luck could have helped ease the country into becoming a truly representative democracy.

Prince Gabriel Konstantinovich and Princess Helena Petrovna also wrote memoirs, but unfortunately the latter are hard to come by, and the only English translation of the former was destroyed in bombings in Beirut.

The dramatic takeoff of women's literature in Russia, in the late eighties and early nineties, was based on considerable previous developments in Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet culture.

During the Soviet period, women wrote poems, novels, and articles as often as men; in fact, their writing was hardly distinguishable from that of men in its approach and subject matter since both were constrained to follow the letter and spirit of Socialist Realism.

Many older women (in Russia, women, on the average live twelve years longer than men) suffer extreme poverty and beg in the streets because they cannot survive on their tiny pensions.

www.wworld.org /publications/powerword2/11russian.htm (2896 words)

Felix Yussupov(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-16)

Rasputin, however, was apparently more interested inYusupov's wife Irina, and it was on the pretext of a tryst with her that Felix invited him to the Moika Palace on the night hedied.

The Yusupov family fled Russia with some of theirgreat wealth but lived out their lives as emigrees in greatly reduced circumstances.

Felix and Irina successfully sued MGM for invasion of privacy and libel in connection with the 1932 film "Rasputinand the Empress".

The daughter of Pavel I Petrovich Romanov, Tsar of Russia and Sophie Marie Dorothea von Württemberg, known as Tsarina Maria Fyodorovna, she was mother of two sons by her first husband, and two daughters by her second, and lived (1788-1819).

It was during this time, when Russia's government seemed adrift, that the Dowager Empress lost complete faith in her daughter-in-law's involvement in governing the empire.

Born as Princess Dagmar of Denmark, she was mother of five children, and lived (1847-1928).

Peter the Great's inquisitive buffoonery at the court of the young Louis XV, Catherine the Great's efforts at pulling Europe toward Russia and those of her grandson Alexander I at pulling Russia toward Europe, the fashions worn by visiting empresses, all contributed something Russian to a west fascinated by the quasi-oriental charms of Slavdom.

Vassiliev's book, for all its inventorying of the effects of Russian culture on the west much of which culture was ironically a reflection of Europeanization carried out in Russia generations before is less a fond backward glance at frivolities of fashion than a sober memorial to the bravery and talents of the Russian exiles.

Still, there was a little happiness for Lud at the end: in 1982, she married a childhood friend, Pierre de la Grandière, and lived with him in the French Alps until her death from cancer in 1990.

She feared that the arrival of this German princess, who was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, was going to diminish her influence with Nicholas, and even displace her from her son's adoring heart.

As Russia's military woes piled and the army turned into a disorganized embarrassment, Nicholas and Alexandra were blamed for the disasters affecting the country.

While revolution spread throughout Russia, Marie-Feodorovna was joined in her seaside refuge by Grand Duke Alexander and Grand Duchess Xenia, their six sons, Prince Youssoupov, his parents and his wife Grand Duchess Irina, daughter of Xenia and Alexander, and Grand Duchess Olga and her new husband Colonel Koulikovsky.

Federal Republic of Russia/ Rossiiskaija Federatsija/Rossija (Female Suffrage 1917) A former Empire became a Soviet Republic in 1917 and was part of the Soviet Union 1922 until it regained its independence 26.12.91

In 1992 She was candidate for the post of Defence Minister and 1996 she put her name forward for the candidacy for the Presidential elections but was turned down because of technicalities but planned to stand for Governor of Sct.

The Emperor's sister, the Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna and her husband Alexander were among those lucky enough to escape from Russia on a warship, having separated from her husband, the Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich lived the rest of her life as a "grace and favor" guest of the British Monarchs at Hampton Court Palace.

The persistent pattern of anti-Semitism and the pernicious practice of persecution of Jews in Russia was identified and summarized by CHRA in March of 1996: This phenomenon [i.e., steadily growing anti-Semitism in an atmosphere of economic hardship following the breakup of the FSU] is exploited by politicians and elected officials for political gain.

Welcome to Russia at the end of the millenium - a place that is striving to be a civil society but remains marked by hints of historic pogroms.

On 5-6 August a conference of Catholic bishop of Russia was held in the cathedral.